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Back in View, a First Lady With Her Own Legacy

The Fords shortly before leaving the White House in January 1977. In her brief time as first lady, Mrs. Ford became known for her candor.Credit
Reuters/Michael Tweed

PALM DESERT, Calif., Dec. 30 — It has been a while since America drew its face close to Betty Ford. But what the nation saw this week here in Southern California — an impossibly tiny face, lips pinched in grief and eyes blinking in the harsh midday sun — served as a poignant reminder of the woman whose reign as first lady, while brief and wholly unexpected, was among the most remarkable in modern history.

Former President Gerald R. Ford’s death on Tuesday at the age of 93 thrust Mrs. Ford back into a public spotlight that she had largely avoided in recent years.

On Friday, with her children and other family members clustered about her, Mrs. Ford watched as her husband’s coffin was carried by a military honor guard into St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church here for a private prayer service. It was the beginning of six days of national mourning.

Mrs. Ford has taken pains to keep her husband’s death as private an affair as possible for a former president — limiting the prayer service here to only the immediate family, followed by a visitation from a small group of invited friends and then a public viewing.

She has spent the last three decades living in a golf community and tending to her treatment center for alcohol and drugs. But her husband’s death has served as a catalyst for an American trip back through the 1970s.

Thrown into the role of first lady during a period of deep distrust in government, she fulfilled the role of honest arbiter of American family life and of the modern woman, speaking candidly on just about any subject she was asked about, both shocking and delighting the country.

She was a product and a symbol of the cultural and political times — doing the Bump along the corridors of the White House, donning a mood ring, chatting on her CB radio with the handle First Mama — a housewife who argued passionately for equal rights for women, a mother of four who mused about drugs, abortion and premarital sex aloud and without regret.

Her candor about her battle with breast cancer, which led to unprecedented awareness among American women about detecting the disease, and her later commitment to alcohol and substance abuse treatment, stemming from her own abuse history, set the stage for widespread acknowledgment and advocacy that is commonplace today.

Given her impact on these crucial health issues and her influence over the modern East Wing, Mrs. Ford’s effect on American culture may be far wider and more lasting than that of her husband, who served a mere 896 days, much of it spent trying to restore the dignity of the office of the president.

“I think that’s true,” said Carl Sferrazza Anthony, a presidential family historian and expert on first ladies. “The impact of her influence on the general public extended beyond her tenure in the White House. It was a situation of somebody coming along in history who, in simply being themselves, ends up crystallizing something that the nation at large is feeling.”

Born Elizabeth Anne Bloomer in Chicago in 1918 and raised in Grand Rapids, Mich., Mrs. Ford was passionate about dance. Not long after she graduated from high school, she studied with Martha Graham in New York City, becoming a member of the Martha Graham Auxiliary Group. In 1941, back in Grand Rapids, she became a fashion coordinator for a department store and formed her own dance group.

After a brief marriage to a furniture salesman, she met Mr. Ford in 1947 and married him the next year, two weeks before he was elected to his first term in Congress. Together they raised four children: Michael Gerald, John Gardner, Steven Meigs and Susan Elizabeth. Her husband’s political career, including eight years as House minority leader, and its attending absences often left her lonely and depressed, and she looked forward to private life.

But instead of becoming the wife of a retired congressman, as she expected, in 1974 she found herself first lady when Mr. Ford was sworn in as the 38th president, after the resignation of Richard M. Nixon.

“I went to their house in Virginia,” said Sheila Weidenfeld, who served as Mrs. Ford’s press secretary. “She came down in her robe. I think it was such a shock when you find out your husband is president, and the next day you had to have a dinner for King Hussein.”

There was no learning curve, Ms. Weidenfeld said, nor preparation. “I remember saying to Betty Ford, ‘Well, what would you like me to do?’ And she said, ‘I don’t know, what am I supposed to do?’ ”

Photo

Betty Ford and former President Gerald R. Ford, in 2005.Credit
Michael Tweed/Reuters

Her role was defined in part less than two months into Mr. Ford’s presidency, when she discovered that she had breast cancer and then discussed her mastectomy openly in hopes of giving other women the tools to detect the disease early and treat it courageously. According to a 1987 article in The Journal of the National Archives, Mrs. Ford received 55,800 cards, or “92 cubic feet of material,” in response to her openness.

The next year, Mrs. Ford took it upon herself to champion the Equal Rights Amendment. She personally phoned legislators, held a slide show in the White House for staff members and gave speeches across the country about women’s rights.

She talked about her support of abortion rights and mulled the idea that her children might have smoked marijuana.

Perhaps most infamously, she told Morley Safer in a “60 Minutes” interview that she would provide “counsel” to her daughter, Susan, then 18, if Susan were involved in a sexual relationship, or, in Mr. Safer’s words, “having an affair.”

While Mrs. Ford drew hundreds of angry letters, public opinion ended up on her side, with “Betty’s Husband for President” buttons decorating the campaign trail.

“One day we had finished an event on the floor and we were going back upstairs,” recalled Maria Downs, her social secretary at the time. “And I said, ‘You don’t seem yourself,’ and she said, ‘I’m all right. I would give my life to have Jerry have my poll numbers.’ ”

Mrs. Ford remained an accessible first lady, even as her days became consumed with details like choosing centerpieces for state dinners. She consulted with her aides while sitting at the edge of the bathtub, dabbing on her makeup; gave a twist to the scarves of staff members to give them a fashionable edge; and chatted about their furniture choices and children.

Her staff was also forced to tiptoe around late appointments and to scramble schedules stemming from Mrs. Ford’s addiction to pain killers, which began when she was prescribed medication in 1964 for a pinched nerve. “She had to cancel events or couldn’t leave the house sometimes,” said Ms. Weidenfeld, who said she once asked the first lady’s doctor to “lay off the pills.”

In 1978, Mrs. Ford’s family intervened in her drug and alcohol abuse, opening a new chapter in her life as a founder of a clinic in California. She described her recovery process in a 1987 book, “Betty: A Glad Awakening.”

Until recently, Mrs. Ford, who is 88, continued to be in charge of her center in Rancho Mirage, and she has remained on the board after handing the helm to her daughter in 2005.

She continues to support treatment centers, attend charity events and speak about substance abuse and breast cancer awareness. Most of all, she enjoyed her expansive and close family, and her time with her husband, whom she remained enamored with through 58 years of marriage.

“Gerald Ford’s father abused his mother, and she was a very strong woman and he was unthreatened by strong women,” Mr. Anthony, the historian, said of the first couple. “You take that kind of a husband and you look at Betty Ford and you see part of what made her an unusual first lady was the context of her marriage.”

Mrs. Ford’s expressions of personal opinions, which several people who worked in the White House at the time say were never discouraged by the president, “were personally held opinions not suited for a political agenda,” Mr. Anthony said.

“Even Eleanor Roosevelt, who did speak her mind, was much more politically savvy in terms of knowing what buttons would be pushed,” he said. “Betty Ford inherited that role, and she already knew that it was not right for her to say things she didn’t mean. In that act, she shattered a precedent and set up a new paradigm for first ladies.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Back in View, a First Lady With Her Own Legacy. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe